if a jerk burns a flag, america is not threatened. political speech is the heart of the first amendment. they're expressing their religious beliefs. now is the time to make justice a reality for all of god's children. captioning provided by the first amendment center, funded by the freedom forum. welcome to speaking freely, a weekly conversation about free expression and america. i'm ken paulson. today we'll look at the history of comic book censorship. our guests today include wendy pini of elfquest, joe quesada of marvel comics, and carmine infantino, the former publisher and president of d.c. comics. welcome to you all. (man) thank you. [applause] well, what a great lineup, and we've got folks with every possible perspective on comic books here. just by way of background, there is something called the comics code that is on comic books, most of the comic books i grew up reading-- many of which were illustrated by carmine-- had the comics code authority approval on it, which basically said this comic book has been sanitized for your